A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

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Critics

• Heathlow aiport? Oh how we laughed

  A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo Chatto & Windus £12.99, pp368 I not Chinese. I British. I prefer read book with sentences not made look like broke. I prefer writer who not pretend not speak English when actually I think ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

• Sorry of my English

  A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo 331pp, Chatto & Windus, £12.99 Xiaolu Guo, who lives in London, has made several films and written several books; this novel is her first written in English. The narrative device she uses ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

15 Reviews

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  unique complexity of chinese and western culture

  Love is a cheap object in England? or in human being? She is such a fabulous writer who is witty and intelligent! She conveys the different culture between East and West by using the numerous conversations with her love and deliberately having a lot of careless grammatical mistakes in every sentenc ... (continue)

  Love is a cheap object in England? or in human being? She is such a fabulous writer who is witty and intelligent! She conveys the different culture between East and West by using the numerous conversations with her love and deliberately having a lot of careless grammatical mistakes in every sentence. What is her purpose? I'm wondering. Does fig represent your love, Z? No flowers and no seeds involved? The conversation from author's mother shows her changed personality once again--live in the moment but not live in the prediction and expectation. I feel sad after reading this book. But, i DO appreciate her diligence. Freedom always separates love that only one of them can be survived in one time?

  It's far better than i have expected=D

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  Gobs Chan said on Jun 7, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  This is a story about cultural differences and love, and how a girl from an Eastern communism country sees capitalism, foreign language, and Western culture.

  It is written in the form of a Chinese girl's English notes. At the beginning the English was written poorly on purpose to show the lack ... (continue)

  This is a story about cultural differences and love, and how a girl from an Eastern communism country sees capitalism, foreign language, and Western culture.

  It is written in the form of a Chinese girl's English notes. At the beginning the English was written poorly on purpose to show the lack of proficiency in the main character's language. In the later part of the book, the grammar was improved to reveal her better understanding of the language and Western culture.

  I find the story very touching, and the verses beautiful, in spite of the poor grammar.

  I myself am also an Asian woman living in a Western country. However, I am not able to notice these cultural differences because I am from a country nurtured by capitalism and Hollywood movies. Therefore it is very interesting to see the Western world again through different eyes.

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  material girl said on Jul 27, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  I had a personal interest in reading this book but found it quite disappointing. The broken english is charming at the beginning (I used to speak like that years ago!) but after a while it was just annoying. I was hoping that perhaps what the story lacked in grammar and flow, would be compensated by ... (continue)

  I had a personal interest in reading this book but found it quite disappointing. The broken english is charming at the beginning (I used to speak like that years ago!) but after a while it was just annoying. I was hoping that perhaps what the story lacked in grammar and flow, would be compensated by the characters and an understanding of different cultures, but again, disappointing to say the least. Instead, I found the characters flat and stereotypical, and a story where very little happens.

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  Dylaniata said on May 21, 2008 about the Paperback edition | 1 feedback

• 

  When I first started to read this I was put off by the way it has been deliberately written in bad English. However once I got to grips with this and realised it was really a necessary and integral part of the novel I began to enjoy it much more, finding it both witty and charming.

  Zhuang is twenty ... (continue)

  When I first started to read this I was put off by the way it has been deliberately written in bad English. However once I got to grips with this and realised it was really a necessary and integral part of the novel I began to enjoy it much more, finding it both witty and charming.

  Zhuang is twenty three years old and her parents have sent her to spend a year in London to learn English to enable her to return to China and help them expand their shoe factory business. The bad English grammar of the writing is essential as at first this is is how she communicates with no understanding of tenses or verbs, just armed with a dictionary. In fact it reminded me of when I first moved to Italy, completely out of my depth with the language.

  It is a very poignant story as Zhuang coming from an Eastern culture to a Western one seems very naive of the ways of the new world she is now inhabiting. Unfortunately the older hippy that she meets, befriends and very quickly ends up living with is far from a perfect partner for her. His attitudes towards her, sex and life in general mean that learning about love is even more confusing for her than learning the language. I should maybe also point out here that are are a few scenes in this novel that are sexually explicit.
  As Zhuang’s grasp of the English language becomes stronger she starts to question the attitude of her lover suspecting that her values are very different to his. The relationship is heading nowhere, although she has a strong desire for this not to be the case.
  A sad but believable story about a young girls loss of innocence as East meets West.

  http://lindyloumacbookreviews.blogspot.it/2012/03/conci…

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  Lindyloumac said on Mar 22, 2012 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• Great reading on the plane but not the standard of classic literature. The beginning was witty and fun, then it got progressively darker.

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  Christine Chow Knowles said on Feb 20, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  funny, sensitive, bittersweet

  I liked this book very much, for several reasons.
  The story of a young Chinese girl from the south of the country, who moves to London to learn English, and then learns a lot more than just the language. It's a sweet, melancholy bildungsroman about a girl coming of age, who becomes a woman away fro ... (continue)

  I liked this book very much, for several reasons.
  The story of a young Chinese girl from the south of the country, who moves to London to learn English, and then learns a lot more than just the language. It's a sweet, melancholy bildungsroman about a girl coming of age, who becomes a woman away from home, experiencing things she would never have imagined back home, exploring a different world and a different soul.

  The cultural traps that can slowly poison a relationship between two people who come from different worlds are sensitively portrayed; so is our society seen from 'alien' eyes, especially in the first part. It's clever and funny, and at the same time wise, as the Amy Tan quote on the cover describes it.
  Also, I very much liked how the character's English slowly changes and improves at the same time as Z learns the language.

  Very good read, I read it in two days, and I'm a bit sad that it's from the library!

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  natalia said on Apr 26, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

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Book Details

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• English Books
• Hardcover 256 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0701181141
• ISBN-13: 9780701181147
• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Pub date: Feb 27, 2007
• Dimensions: 1419 mm x 903 mm x 194 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Paperback, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages 繁體書, 简体书, Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Libri Italiani

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